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On February 5, 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, frustrated with the US Supreme Court's treatment of some of his economic reforms, proposed a plan to add judges to that and other federal courts whenever a sitting judge reached the age of seventy but declined to retire.

Critics accused Roosevelt of indulging in autocracy and "court-packing.". Listen to Roosevelt's "fireside chat" on the proposal from March 9, 1937, and review the text of his address. Roosevelt eventually dropped the initiative, but was nonetheless able to fill seven vacancies on the Court over the next four years, achieving his goal indirectly.

On February 5, 1988, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was indicted on charges of drug smuggling and money laundering. The following year, he was extradited to the United States and later sentenced to 30 years in U.S. federal prison.

In 1999, the French government requested that Noriega be extradited to France, where he has been convicted of money laundering. In that same year, the government of Panama also requested extradition of Noriega, as a result of his 1995 conviction in abstentia on murder charges.